Plagiarists rarely confess their sin, the worst a writer can commit. Almost all, when caught, make excuses. The most common are: (1) everyone does it, (2) it’s not really plagiarism, (3) any similarities are slight or irrelevant, (4) I forgot to cite the sources, (5) quotation marks and citations were accidentally removed, (6) the passages are only a small part of the book, (7) I unconsciously memorized the original, (8) my researcher is to blame, (9) drinking, drugs, or mental illness is to blame, and (10) the critic who caught me is to blame.

Excuses 2 and 3 may be entirely valid. And I could give a pass for 6 and 7 as well.

I can definitely give a pass to 7 -- in very small doses. I know at least once I inadvertently did that -- an earlier draft of the book I'm kinda-sorta working on (the story of the dead woman who can't get into heaven because a pickpocket stole her entrance-ticket) had a working title "Life is Wasted on the Living," which I figured was my own original takeoff of "Youth is wasted on the young" -- until I re-read Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide series and was horrified to find that exact sentence coming from the mouth of a dead-ghost character.

But that was a single six-word punchline, NOT something like "Whoops, I unconsciously plagiarized several paragraphs or even several pages' worth of material verbatim." Bullshit.

Yeah, that's the coining of a humorous mock aphorism. How many people attribute Shakespeare's one-liners?

"The constitution is more of a BDSM agreement with a safe word." - Sandy

"Dude she's the Purdue Pharma of the black pill." - JasonL

"This thread is like a dog park where everyone lets their preconceptions and biases run around and sniff each others butts." - Hugh Akston

Pursuant to a conversation elsewhere, I know enough French to known that "male masseur" is redundant; a masseur is male, a masseuse is female. No idea what non-gender-or-sexual-binary massage therapists are called in French.

John Travolta was accused of groping a masseur’s bare buttocks, exposing himself, and making lewd suggestions to the 21-year-old man at a California hotel, according to a police report that has now been published on the website Radar Online.

Why were the masseur's buttocks bare? Inquiring minds want to know. Not see, just know.

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." -E Benn

Pursuant to a conversation elsewhere, I know enough French to known that "male masseur" is redundant; a masseur is male, a masseuse is female. No idea what non-gender-or-sexual-binary massage therapists are called in French.

John Travolta was accused of groping a masseur’s bare buttocks, exposing himself, and making lewd suggestions to the 21-year-old man at a California hotel, according to a police report that has now been published on the website Radar Online.

Why were the masseur's buttocks bare? Inquiring minds want to know. Not see, just know.

They fit better on Travolta's face that way?

If Trump supporters wanted a tough guy, why did they elect such a whiny bitch? - Mo

The second-in-command of the Jacksonville, FL sheriff's office appears to be unfamiliar with the concept of "warnings".

Ivey, the sheriff’s office’s second in command, defended the merits of writing tickets to help fight pedestrian fatalities. He said that unless and until the city spends the money on things like street design and more and better sidewalks, the office had no choice but to write tickets.

“I’ll throw a scenario out,” Ivey said. “A camera — I don’t care what camera, from convenience store, cell phone camera, I don’t care — catches a policeman sitting there watching people jaywalk all day long across the street, and he’s sitting right there. Then all of a sudden, a car comes along. Kid’s killed. What does the family say, you know? ‘Why didn’t the policeman stop them, tell them, give them a ticket? I don’t care. Why didn’t they do it?’”

“I think we have a duty to educate, warn, and enforce where appropriate until infrastructure is fixed,” Ivey added. “Otherwise, I think we’d be doing a disservice to the community.”

A couple of hours spent observing who jaywalks in Jacksonville suggests Ivey’s education effort should include his own officers. Over a two-day span, dozens of uniformed Jacksonville police officers were observed jaywalking downtown by ProPublica and Times-Union journalists.

Ivey and his boss, Sheriff Williams, said they could not comment or take action until they had seen evidence of the routine jaywalking by their officers.

Of course, you need evidence for your own officers. Evidence above and beyond the reports of journalists who witnessed it firsthand.

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." -E Benn

The second-in-command of the Jacksonville, FL sheriff's office appears to be unfamiliar with the concept of "warnings".

Ivey, the sheriff’s office’s second in command, defended the merits of writing tickets to help fight pedestrian fatalities. He said that unless and until the city spends the money on things like street design and more and better sidewalks, the office had no choice but to write tickets.

“I’ll throw a scenario out,” Ivey said. “A camera — I don’t care what camera, from convenience store, cell phone camera, I don’t care — catches a policeman sitting there watching people jaywalk all day long across the street, and he’s sitting right there. Then all of a sudden, a car comes along. Kid’s killed. What does the family say, you know? ‘Why didn’t the policeman stop them, tell them, give them a ticket? I don’t care. Why didn’t they do it?’”

If I were a reporter, I'd be wary of documenting with photos or videos the actions of on-duty cops which might satisfy the evidentiary standards of the brass. They tend to react poorly to being recorded.

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." -E Benn

Some dimwit wrote:This is what happens when you dumb down the public service, put people on contracts, keep wages low, treat workers with little or no respect. People not invested in the system just go through the motions.

If Trump supporters wanted a tough guy, why did they elect such a whiny bitch? - Mo

At first I thought that a garbage truck would be more appropriate, but if you recall, "Dump Truck" was the name of a book by Dave Chappelle's Black White-Supremecist, Clayton Bigsby. That seems like kismet.